Returned Inquiry Question

     William Goldberg 813

     In the book "The Returned" by Jason Mott, the main issue is how the dead are mysteriously coming back to life in different places from where they died. People are silent when it comes down to answering the question of what are they going to do with these "Returned". Many people decide to just kill them, while others try to act as if the Returned never died. The International Bureau of the Returned decide to place them in prisons around the world. This has made me believe that the many different people in this book view these issues very differently.
     There are many people in the book who'd prefer that the dead remained dead. One of these characters is Fred Green who decides to stand up in church and argue with Pastor Peters over how the Returned should be treated. He thinks that the Returned "...are devils..." should be dealt with appropriately. There are also other people in Dallas who actually did murder all of the Returned that popped up there and left their corpses in the streets. These people aren't the only ones who wanted to deal with the Returned in such a violent manner. The Returned were signs of the end of the world for some people.
     The International Bureau of the Returned later on in the book decide to keep all of the Returned they can find locked up in prisons until they can find out what to do with them. They have these prisons everywhere showing that they are prepared for any amount of Returned returning to our world. The Bureau eventually treated them like criminals, herding them into prisons and interrogating them to find out more about the creepy reappearances of human beings. The Bureau treated the issue as if they were dealing with a world wide epidemic. This is a drastic view on how to deal with this issue, but at least it wasn't violent...most of the time. Even people in the town of Arcadia with a prison can see Returned being lined up into the school-prison. The Bureau was just trying to do what they thought was right, sadly, it involved creating prisoners.
     Then there are the others who try to act as if the Returned are miracles brought by God to help relinquish the pain felt by loved ones and friends of the Returned. Some of them try to even act as if the Returned never left. Out of all of these three, I believe that this is the most reasonable of these choices. A woman named Lucille (mother of one of the main Returned) first thinks of the Returned as devils just like in the 2nd paragraph, but once her son Jacob returns she truly becomes a believer in this miracle and starts treating Jacob as if he never died. This is proof of some people enjoying the returning of these dead beings. Harold, her husband, acts the same when Jacob arrives at their doorstep. These are people who decided to treat the situation in a warm and mature manner. These are the people who thought of the Returned as a gift, rather than a bad omen.
     In conclusion, the book "The Returned" by Jason Mott, has a very serious and unrealistic issue treated in many different ways. The ways are violent, cold and formal, and accepting and loving. Sadly, it has come to my attention, that in the real world when the U.S is faced with something they don't understand or know, they act in the only way they know how to, violence.